There will still be no support – Please read!

Hi guys. Just checking in again.

I’ve been seeing more and more questions being posted in the articles’ comments section. Unfortunately, this can’t continue because I won’t be around enough to answer peoples’ questions, so the comments just end up cluttering all the other comments that can be useful to others.

If you have any questions, I urge you to head over to the Game Maker Community as they will be able to help you just as much as I could. Simply reference whatever tutorial on here you need help with (using a link) and they’ll provide assistance with whatever you need. In addition, likely if you search the Q&A forums, you’ll find a few people who’ve already asked your question and had answers given to them.

If comments continue to be posted on these articles which contain technical questions about the tutorial or article, the question will be edited out of your comment. If your comment is entirely made up of a question or questions, it will be deleted completely to make room for comments of another nature. I won’t be around very much to do this moderation, but when I do come around I will clean up a bit in this way. I never plan on taking this blog down so you don’t have to worry about losing the articles, but unfortunately as I don’t really have the time to continuously come back here and moderate if the questions continue I’ll have to disable comments altogether, at least on the tutorial articles. I’d rather not do that.

I’m making this a sticky so that it has the greatest chance of being noticed by my readers. Thanks for all your support over all the months I’ve had this blog active.

There will be no support

I’m not sure who knows this and who doesn’t, but I’m not writing to this blog anymore (aside from this). I’ve moved on to other things past Game Maker, mostly in the realm of music composition. If anybody happens to want to see how I’m doing now, you can check out my work at either:

Youtube (where I will post videos of myself performing on the piano)
Newgrounds (where I will be uploading random music that I write)

In addition, I will soon be writing a new blog, about my own life and observations, here.

Anyways, in addition to all this, I will keep this blog up in order to allow people to continue reading it. However, I’ve been getting email alerts (which I will be turning off) about blog comments asking questions about tutorial content. Please refrain from posting those here as they will NOT be answered. I encourage all of you to take your questions to the Game Maker Community. Reference in your post to one of these blog entries (whichever one you used) and they should be able to help you just fine.

My support forums (which I mention underneath the tutorials as a place to go with questions) will also not be monitored and therefore your questions will not be answered there either. Sorry.

In order to keep the forums clean for people and so they can view actual comments on the articles, I will now go through and delete all the comments in the articles which ask technical questions and leave the others.

Good day, and happy Game Making.

Agalag Wins Honorable Mention

The yoyogames cooperation competition results came out today. Agalag got an honorable mention, which although was marginally disappointing, was more than I’ve ever gotten in any game before. =D

So the game has been staff picked, and listed under “runners up” on the competition glog entry.
Congrats to the winners! (jumper 3 especially)

In case you forgot where to find Agalag, it’s here:

Agalag
Added: 20 August 2008
By: SoulRed12

The GMC Q&A FAQ Project

~~Last update: 9/29/08~~
List moved to its own page.

I haven’t used that many single letters in a title since…well, ever.

Anyways, as a follow up to my last article, here’s a project I’m starting which I hope will reduce the amount of the duplicate topics in the GMC Q&A forums (thanks to Snail Productions for the idea).  It’s a list of links to topics on the GMC that answer many common questions.  NOTE that it is an ongoing WIP, which means as I find more appropriate topics in the GMC Q&A forums, I will list them here.

I hope people will look here for a link before just randomly posting a topic on the GMC.

You can now find the list in its own page, here. I bet it feels so special now.

Pre-GMC Quick Answers

Got a question?  Going to go to the GMC about it?  Well hold off for just a second.

I’ll outline what I mean here.  The reason I decided to write this article, is because I have recently been seeing many questions in the GMC novice and intermediate Q&A forums that all have a similar or exactly the same answer.

For the list of common question-answer pairs, read on.

First though, check out the GMC Q&A FAQ Project (ongoing WIP) on this blog to look for a link to an already posted GMC thread that hopefully answers your question. Please feel free to contribute to the project by posting in the GMC topic.

If your question isn’t there, try using the search feature. If that doesn’t work either, then think about your question and match it to one of the kinds listed here.

SoulHow to use data structures

I told you it was coming. The data structure soulhow article. We’re up over 8000 hits, thanks to you, so I figured it was a great time to write another article.

So what are data structures? Well first, before I go any further, I’d like to redirect you to the arrays soulhow article if you haven’t read it yet and don’t already know what an array is. The reason is that data structures are just special types of arrays.

Sadly, this is a pro-only feature. So if you have lite, GO GET PRO and come back.

Back yet? Great. Let’s go.

Probably three of my favorite videos ever

This is just…crazy. I can’t explain it any better. Crazy. Oh, and good.
I know that they’re old, and they have absolutely nothing to do with game maker or game design, but I couldn’t help it. Part three is my favorite.

New website

Just a quick notice. I’ve set up a new website for SoulRed Productions, and I took down the page here. Find the new site here. I’ve added a link in the links bar as well.

And yes, it does use ucoz. While I definitely want your feedback, telling me not to use ucoz just because “It’s crappy” or “It’s just like freewebs” doesn’t help me in any way (especially when my personal experience doesn’t parallel those comments). Thanks.

SoulHow to use arrays

Ever heard of those weird things called arrays?  Me neither.

…

Just kidding of course.  Anyways, arrays are much easier to understand than they sound.  Due to the fact that I realized I had actually never explained arrays in any blog entry (!!!), I’ll explain them here (as suggested by the article title…) If you don’t know what a variable is, either read the SoulHow to code in GML article, read the GM manual, or else you’re on your own.

SoulHow to make a more successful fangame

What do you think is the most frequently made fangame?  Mario?  Sonic?  Megaman?  Nope, you’re wrong.  The most frequently made fangames, are bad ones.  And sadly, these poorly-made fangames’ reputations tend to rub off onto other fangames and shoot their chances as well.

I really don’t care about original vs. fangame; all I care about is whether a game is good, and I’m sure most of you will agree with me if you truly think about it.  Seriously, who out there has played, for example, Hard Hat 3 by Damaged, and disliked it because it was unoriginal?  The real deal breaker is (should be) the game’s quality.  If you find yourself disliking a fangame only because it’s unoriginal, you should think be thinking a little harder.

And with that said, I will now write something more like what you were expecting in a SoulHow article: how to get your fangame more successful.  This doesn’t mean matching the original game to the T, but making different levels and bosses.  Actually, it involves a number of things.